Mitch Richmond, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014, had a decorated career in the 1990s. It was capped in his final season by a championship with the 2002 Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers. Becoming an NBA champion was a fitting sendoff, but being teammates with Shaq, however briefly, is the gift that keeps on giving.
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The six-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA player and 1989 Rookie of the Year averaged at least 21.9 points per game in each of his first 10 seasons in the league. But when the former guard reminisces about his career, experiences he had as Shaq’s teammate remain some of the high points. They are fresh in his memory, even more than 20 years later.
Richmond was on the latest episode of Byron Scott’s Fast Break on Sunday, and he told one story about the Big Diesel that proved just how committed the seven-footer was to pranking his teammates. We already knew this, but this story, unlike so many Shaq tales, is not scatological in nature.
“I’m running late [to practice], and I’m riding. I’m flying,” Richmond said. “I get pulled over, bro. Now I’m kinda thinking. I’m looking in my glove compartment to get my stuff. Somebody hit on the window, and I didn’t look back. I just saw it was a car that wasn’t a police car … but it had the lights up. I’m like, ‘Damn.'”
Then Richmond heard a deep voice at his window growl, “License and registration.” He turned back to look. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute.’ It was Shaq.”
At this point, Byron Scott and his cohost Kid Jay burst out laughing. Richmond continued, saying that the big man didn’t stop there. “I’m like, ‘Come on, dawg, what you doin?’ And then he ran my plates! He had my thing, ran my plates to the people.”
Shaq has always had a fascination with law enforcement. And sure enough, in 2002, he was a reserve officer with the Los Angeles Port Police. Just a couple of years ago, he even filmed a recruitment video for them.
Over the years, Shaq has gone on to become a reserve police officer across several jurisdictions in such states as Florida, Arizona, Louisiana and Georgia.
“I remember like it was yesterday. We’re all sitting on the plane, and Shaq is talking about, ‘Yeah man, I wanna really do undercover.’ The whole plane started laughing. ‘Dawg, how you gonna do undercover? People gonna recognize you right away,'” said Richmond.
It’s not known whether Shaq ever got to fulfill his ultimate fantasy of becoming an undercover officer. Given his immense size and fame, it seems exceedingly unlikely. Donnie Brasco, he’s not. He did get to recently play a gang boss on the Amazon Prime show Gravesend, though, a more fitting role for someone so large and intimidating.
